3 SESSION BRIEF
The MINEX Eurasia conference held in London on 1 December 2025 featured a session focused on “Financing Mining and Critical Infrastructure Projects in Central Asia.” This session drew significant attention due to the surge in demand for critical minerals needed for the global energy transition, with Central Asia viewed as a region of immense opportunity for mining and infrastructure development. The rich resource base, coupled with strategic location and progressive economies, makes this region both attractive and complex for investors aiming to tap into greenfield exploration, brownfield expansions, downstream processing, and large-scale infrastructure projects.
The session framed Central Asia as a strategically located, resource‑rich region that can supply critical minerals for the global energy transition, provided investors can navigate political, regulatory and geological risk. Speakers stressed that well‑structured projects spanning greenfield exploration, brownfield expansions, processing and infrastructure can be highly profitable once risk is properly shared and de‑risking instruments are in place.
Capital markets and Central Asian issuers
The first part of the discussion Moderated by Alexander Keepin, Partner at Simmons & Simmons, the session was explicitly designed to bridge miners and financiers, linking the need for massive new CapEx to the evolving toolkit of capital markets, development finance and commercial lenders active in Eurasia.
In the capital markets panel, Ayuna Nechaeva outlined how London’s public markets continue to finance growth in mining and energy, even in an environment often described as “difficult” for IPOs. Recent examples she highlighted included sizeable listings and bond deals by Eurasian issuers, with particular emphasis on companies from Uzbekistan raising substantial volumes via Eurobonds that were heavily oversubscribed, reflecting strong investor appetite for gold and uranium exposure.
She also underlined London’s role as a venue for both equity and fixed‑income issuance from Central Asia, noting that robust governance, ESG performance and transparent disclosure are now central to attracting broad institutional demand. For junior miners, the AIM market remains important but is undergoing reforms to keep admission and ongoing requirements proportionate so that earlier‑stage companies are not treated like large main‑market issuers, while still meeting baseline investor protections.
Dialling in from Astana, Ainur Kapparova contrasted London’s depth with the more nascent capital markets environment in Kazakhstan. She pointed to a handful of recent mining‑related listings on the Astana International Exchange, including cross‑listings alongside Hong Kong, but emphasised that exploration‑stage companies still face resistance from local underwriters who are reluctant to take Greenfield risk despite evident interest from local high‑net‑worth investors.
Exploration funding gaps and local ecosystems
A key theme from Kapparova’s intervention was the structural funding gap at the exploration stage in Kazakhstan and wider Central Asia. While the country has liberalised its mining code and opened licensing to more foreign applicants, many juniors struggle to finance work programs needed to move from historical Soviet‑era data to internationally reportable resources under JORC, NI 43‑101 or the Kazakh KAZRC standard.
She described concept‑stage work on a mining platform or accelerator intended to match early‑stage projects with both strategic and financial investors comfortable with geological and jurisdictional risk. The ambition is to help domestic juniors progress to feasibility and secure the resource classifications required for listing on the Astana International Exchange, thereby anchoring more of the value chain inside Kazakhstan rather than exporting all capital‑raising to London or Hong Kong.
This exploration gap was placed in a broader regional context: Central Asia’s subsoil remains underexplored relative to its potential, despite hosting a wide array of critical minerals highlighted in several other MINEX Forum sessions and external analyses, from copper and uranium to battery‑related by‑products produced via base‑metal smelting.
Project finance, DFIs and risk mitigation
The second panel, “Mining Project Finance and Investment,” shifted the discussion from public markets to long‑tenor debt and blended finance. Under the moderation of Sara Barin, Partner at Simmons & Simmons, the panellists unpacked how commercial banks, development finance institutions and specialist funds structure deals for mining and associated infrastructure in higher‑risk jurisdictions.
Stephan Pueschel, KfW IPEX‑Bank, Azamat Kasymbekov, EBRD and Ekaterina Autet, IFC drew on a pipeline of Eurasian case studies to illustrate typical project finance features: non‑recourse structures, long maturities, political‑risk guarantees, export credit support and strong covenants around ESG performance and community engagement. They emphasised that success in Central Asia hinges on credible sponsors, bankable offtake arrangements, and robust environmental and social management systems aligned with international standards.
Advisers from Lee Barnes, Oval Advisory and Cailey Barker, Xcelsior Capital highlighted the role of private capital and specialist funds, which often step in alongside DFIs to provide mezzanine, royalty, or streaming‑style instruments that can fill funding gaps while aligning repayment with project cash flow. This layering of public and private capital, they argued, is increasingly necessary to move projects from advanced exploration through construction in a world of volatile commodity prices and heightened geopolitical risk.
Outlook for Central Asian mining finance
Across both panels, speakers converged on a cautiously optimistic outlook for 2026 and beyond, while acknowledging that geopolitical shocks and market volatility can quickly affect timing and pricing. The accelerating demand for critical minerals to power electrification, renewable energy and digital technologies is expected to keep investor interest high in uranium, copper, gold and other strategic commodities where Central Asia holds significant reserves.
However, realising this potential will require continued capital‑market reforms, deeper local investor bases, and stronger project pipelines that meet global expectations on governance and sustainability. The MINEX Eurasia session demonstrated that the building blocks are in place: a sophisticated London market open to Central Asian issuers, an emerging ecosystem in Astana seeking to support juniors, and a set of DFIs and commercial lenders prepared to finance high‑quality projects that align commercial returns with the global energy transition.